This is a follow up to my post about how to make 1000’s of versions of test that I wrote on September 25th 2013.

I have made a video which explains how to make thousands of versions of the same exam using  Moodle, a learning management system that is used by many schools across the world.  Note:  Many other learning management systems and even products such as Quia and other testing software can also do this.  But since I have lots of questions in Moodle I thought I would make a short video on how to accomplish this for my readers.  Enjoy.

 

 

One thought on “How to make 1000's of Versions of an Exam Using Moodle

  1. I’m trying to learn how to use Blackboard using pools. Pools are Blackboard’s terminology for creating the banks of questions. Creating the pools will be ok. But, how do you deal with an overall grade for the marking period? I’m a 7th grade middle school math teacher. We have 4 marking periods. If students are using the mastery learning model, then how do I do grades in Blackboard? Some students will have covered more exams and quizzes. Some students will have more grades because they covered more material. I don’t know the logistics on Blackboard and I don’t know a fair way to calculate an overall grade. Unfortunately, we don’t have Standards Based Grading.

    1. When I graded problems where I used to give partial credit, I had the students turn in an organized paper showing all of their work. If the computer told them they had it wrong I would then look at their work on that question and then would over-ride the score and give them partial credit.

      In terms of grading students who got further into the program, I did a quick screencast on how we graded which you can watch. It is recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayZjjAjhLsE

      1. Thanks for your reply. I watched the video. I’m going to pitch this to my principal on Jan. 7. My chairperson is not keen on technology. So, it is an upward battle. I do have some questions or clarifications.
        1)Weekly Grades: A student is behind. It is now next Monday. What do you do? I need to move onto the new week’s objective, but this is student is behind. Do I give him the new week’s objectives or do I repeat the ones that did not make me happy?
        2) I didn’t understand the first of the 3 categories you mentioned. The one that doesn’t count, but is used for the second category. Could you clarify?
        3) When are you doing another online course on mastery learning using the flipped model? Are you teaching any seminars in the New Your area this year?

        Thanks in advance,
        Rob

  2. I thought about it as I was playing around with Blackboard. Tell me if I got this right. The first category is labeled objectives. Each test (not a real test) is an objective in this category. Each test (objective) is worth zero points. Then, as you enter weekly grades on Friday, you eye the objectives that were met and enter the percent weekly grade. Is this the system?

    I assume you don’t make formula for Weekly Grade column based on the objective tests results because each student has different objectives since it is mastery learning classroom. And, that would be a nightmare.

    Or, did I get this all wrong?

    1. Yes and no. The objectives roll over. If on week ONE he masters 4/4 objectives he gets 100%. If he masters 3/4 he gets 75%. Then next week lets say he has to master through objective 7. He must go back and make up the objective (probably #4) that he didn’t master. If he now cumulatively masters 7/7 he can earn a 100% for week 2. He does take a hit on week one, but usually this is because he didn’t use his time as well as he should have. So each week the TOTAL number of objectives needed to be mastered increases.

      Hope this clears it up

  3. It does. I makes sense. I get the weekly grade much better. I can handle that on a paper grade book. How do you handle that with an LMS system? My district uses Blackboard. How do you handle the objectives category specifically?

    BTW, textbook publishes concentrate too much on electronic chapter exams. My textbook publishes makes question banks sorted by chapters. It would be nice if the publishers started sorting based on objectives (standards are too broad). I even need one objective broke down into sub-objectives at times to create a “good” test.

  4. Hi,

    I was wondering if you had time to answer the question above. I really don’t know hoe to handle the tech part of what you discussed on an LMS system. Could you explain?

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